Summarizer: 5/2/10 (first reading assignment) In this first chapter of The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, he states that all changes are apart of; Epidemics. When we read or hear Epidemic we think in matters of disease, but Malcolm Gladwell explains that epidemics could be more than just diseases they can be other occurrences such as the sudden increase of Hush Puppy Sales, or the sudden decrease in crime in New York City. He also goes on to explain that all epidemics have three common points, they are: 1) They are contagious. 2) Little causes can have big effects. 3) change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment. He also says that the point at which everything changes (within a epidemic) is called The Tipping Point. He explains that there could be three causes for something to dramatically change, and they are: The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. He explains his many points using the Hush Puppy Epidemic, New York Crime rate decrease, the spread of Syphilis through New York, and the murder of Kitty Genovese and how 38 people heard her scream but no one responded or helped because they thought the other people would do it. I expect that Malcolm Gladwell will explain the three causes/ factors of change more in depth, in the chapters to follow.
Passage Master: 5/2/10 (First reading assignment.) 1st passage: page 13: bottom of page:
- I chose this because it illustrates that small changes can have bigger effects, using the change in precipitation once the temperature change a couple degrees.
2nd passage: page 17: Middle Paragraph to the end of the next page
- I chose this passage because it shows that if you change the environment that, in this case, is containing a disease, it takes away the barriers that are containing it there, and thus it is allowed to spread and infect other areas, that previously haven't had an issue with this problem.
3rd passage: page 25
- I chose this passage because it demonstrates that if companies have a catchy slogan or a memorable saying it will give the product a better chance of becoming popular.
4th passage: page 27-28
- I chose this passage because it shows that even the most smallest things can effect how human beings react to different situations.
Summarizer: 5/4/10 (second reading assignment) In this reading Gladwell talks about the people who are able to cause a Tipping Point. He states that the people who are able to do this are very social people, and they have a lot of people they communicate a lot with. He explains this using Paul Reveres legendary ride to Lexington to tell the militia that the British are coming. On his way to Lexington he passed through many towns, and in those towns he knew people, and he told them the situation, and they told their friends and they told their friends, and by the time the British actually did come the people were able to fight them off. He also uses William Dawes ride to Lexington, which was similar to Paul Reveres ride, but the major difference was that he didn't have people to tell in those towns that he passed through, and when the British did come they were not prepared at all. The people that have the ability to spread information, like Paul Revere, are called Connectors.
Connectors are people who have many many friends and introduce friends to other friends and can be traced back to through these ties as the person who made them. Being a connector can get you unexpected awards. He uses, Roger Horchow, as an example of a person who impulsively makes friendships with people, or Weak ties, and at one point he wanted to do a remake of the show, Girl Crazy?, and because he knew the closest friend of the person who could give him the rights to that film, he was able to do a remake. People Like Roger Horchow (connector) are the people who can effect a Tipping Point.
What is this importance of a single event? How does analyzing events or individuals impact decisions made today?
- A single event, such as Paul Revere's Ride to Lexington, is important because it impacted so many people, and because he had many friends the word that The British were coming spread faster and basically saved a lot of people. When analyzing events like this we learn what is best to do in situations like this, we learned from this specific event that people who have large circles of friends are able to spread the word, or cause a Tipping Point.
Job: Discussion Director 5/4/10 (second reading assignment) What was your score on the name counting page? Do you, or anyone else you know, show the characteristics of being a connector? Do you think that college students, or people in their 40's have larger network of friends today? Do you think you meet more people through friends, or through activities that you do with others?
Summarizer: 5/6/10 (third reading assignment) In this section Gladwell continued to talk about connectors how, typically, they are people that can go into different "worlds," (different groups of people) and make "acquaintances," and when they get information on a, lets say good restaurant, and once they get home they will e-mail some people from different groups or areas and from then the word that this certain restaurant is good, spreads through their groups. After talking about the connectors Gladwell talked about a group of people known as, Mavens, this people, Gladwell explains, are people who are information hunters, and like to learn about anything and everything. These Mavens like to learn new things and teach people about what they learm , and to advise them on what hotels have the best price, and how to buy a car for a much cheaper price. This means that a maven would have to talk to a connector about, let's say, the good price for Hush Puppies, and the connector would use his vast amount of connections to spread the word about these great prices for Hush Puppies. Gladwell states that Paul Revere was one of those rare people that was both a Maven and a Connector, because he was secretly working to gather information on the British Movements. The importance of occurrences like those of Paul Revere's ride to Lexington, and the Hush Puppies popularity increase are important events to look back on because it is interesting to find out how many different people are involved in these changes, and analyzing these events can teach us how our connections to different people work, and can also influence us in making the same decisions today.
Job: Researcher: 5/6/10 (third reading assignment) Paul Revere: was a member of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, and Committee of Saftey. Both of these played a part in the American Revolution, and also it demonstrates that Paul Revere was a Maven, since he was collecting information for these groups. Also the fact that he was apart of multiple groups shows that he is also a connector, since he is able to go into "different worlds," or in other terms different groups of people, and still be able to effect them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere
Lois Weisberg: Lois Weisberg was declared a connector because she can make aquaintances easily, and she is able to and has been through many different worlds and interact with them. Using her ties she has been able to do many different projects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Weisberg
Summarizer: 5/9/10 (fourth assignment) This last part of our reading finished the chapter on The Law of The Few and started into the chapter called The Stickiness Factor. In the last couple of pages in The Law of The Few chapter, Gladwell introduces us to another type of person who can influence a tipping point, and this type of person is called the, "Salesman." The important quality that these people have is the quality to persuade people. These people can persuade you, using body movement, and emotion to control the conversation. Their enthusiasm can rub off and you, and in turn you will mimic this feeling. Salesmen can manipulate people in simple ways but are people that can cause a tipping point. The importance of one moment in time where you are being influenced by someone whose personality is stronger than yours can make is big, and researching and analyzing these types of poeple can force people to make different decisions in future because they are now aware of the influence of these types of people. In the next chapter Gladwell described what the Stickiness Factor was. The Stickiness factor is the ability for some form of information to stay in your mind. In this section Gladwell used, Sesame Street television series as an example of this. The people that made this show conducted many different experiments to see what type of techniques the children would pay attention to and what would ultimately make them learn. An interesting thing that I learned from this part was that kids don't stop watching the television because they get distracted, they stop watching because that particular part is confusing, so instead of being even more confused the kids would stop watching. So to make this information stick into the minds of these kids the producers of this show would have to simplify what the actors/muppets were saying so that the information would stick more permanently into the minds of these kids. When you think about these small events you think they aren't important, but they are because they teaching everyone what works and what doesn't work, and when you analyze these events the person producing the show is most likely going to use the information that is more successful than the techniques that aren't.
Job: Passage Master. 5/9/10 (fourth assignment) 1st passage- page 82: I chose this particular passage because I found it interesting that you can influence a persons decisions with your body movements, and your facial expressions. I use my hands a lot when I talk to, emphasize my points maybe i'm a potential salesman.
2nd passage- page 90: I picked this passage because it is saying that people watch a lot of television, and companies are using that fact to get us. But there are also people are looking to enhance us, looking for a way to get our children a head start so that illiteracy rates would go down.
3rd passage- top of page 95- I found this part interesting because they say to get more people to buy stuff from your add you have to make them participate, give them an incentive.
Summary: 5/11/10 (fifth assignment) For this assignment we finished up The Stickiness Factor, and started The Law of Context. In the conclusion of The Stickiness Factor chapter, Gladwell discusses how making a few small changes can tip the amount of viewers to favor you. The example he used was Blue Clues. People who worked for Sesame Street left Sesame Street and feeling that they could build up on what they learned from Sesame Street. Instead of trying to be clever, the creators of Blues Clues made it so that it was easy to understand using words little children could understand, and they also made it so that kids could actively participate with the show.(Linking Back to Essential Question:)The importance of this single event is that by researching and observing, the creators of Blue's Clues were able to build on old ideas, and tip the amount of viewers towards their show. Looking back and analyzing this would be basically just like what the creators of Blue's Clue's did, and we can then decide to build on old ideas. The next section, The Power of Context, talks about how if your environment is changed it can cause, in general, change in behavior. Gladwell used the the subway system, in New York, as an example, once the subway system was repaired and cleaned up and got security in them, crime rate went down. This was due to the fact that the environment in the subway system was changed. (linking back to essential question) When examining the past it is important to take into account the small changes, such as environment changes, because they make an impact. This in effect can influence our decisions today by making us want to get the same results when cleaning homes, schools, and even shopping centers.
Job: Passage Manager. 5/11/10 (fifth assignment) 1st. Page 113- This is interesting to me, because I would think that kids would be interested in this plot line, but I learned that once it got somewhat complicated kids would start to tune out.
2nd. Page 120 (girls conversation with herself)- Also interesting to know that kids depend on the narrative part of a story, and sometimes they would narrate their owne lives.
3rd. Page 142-143 chose this because he says that even the smallest things, such as graffiti, can be an influence on crime rates.
Summary: 5/12/010 (6th assignment) This reading concluded the first part of The Power of Context. In this reading Gladwell explains that the decisions that individual people make are influenced greatly by what situation they are in. He explains this a number of ways, and one of those was an experiment being led by Phillip Zimbardo, who worked at Stanford University. In this, Zimbrado wanted to know if it was the people in the prison that made the environment nasty, or the actual environment that made the prisoners nasty. The results were stunning. The guards, who almost all described themselves as pacifists, had suddenly transformed into the aggressors and were thinking up many different ways to torment their prisoners. What a reader can glean from this experiment is that the situations and environment people are put into can have a great affect on how they behave, and what decisions they make. In this section they also tested students, using various tests, and then giving them the answer key so they can check their work. Most likely the experimenters had a copy of the test with their answers, and after the student turned in his "checked" test they would see if they had cheated. 50% of students will cheat, based on what type of situation they are in. This further supports the theory of Power of Context because the Power of Context states that no matter the size, if the environment has changed it will force the people in that environment to make quick choices, and thus cause a Tipping Point.
Linking Back to the Essential Question: If the the environment has been altered, and in response a person has changed their behaviors, then that single change(event) had a big impact on that person and will eventually have a impact on many other people. When looking back on this chapter, I have learned that it is best to not only analyze the person but also analyze the situation that they were put in. Learning from the people and the situations they were in we can learn from them and are able to make decisions that would not put us in those peoples similar positions, so we wouldn't have to make those uncomfortable snap decisions.
Jon: Passage Master: 5/12/10 ( 6th assignment) Passage one: Page 154: I chose this because I found it interesting that even though these people had signed up for this experiment they still reacted to environment and even though it wasn't "real" some of them still broke down, and went hysterical.
Passage two: Page 159: I chose this because, even they are talking about monkeys, humans can react similarly. I mean humans are more attuned to other human beings other than other species, like the monkeys who didn't notice the python laying in wait, but knew more information about their own species.
Summary: 5/13/10 (seventh assignment) In this chapter, Gladwell explained that human beings can only process certain amounts of information, and accordingly can only keep track of up to 150 different people. This is called The Rule of 150. An experiment done by a scientist, named Robin Dunbar, informs us that the amount of people a single person can know and talk to is proportional to how big their Neo-cortex is(this is apart of their brain). Based off many tests Dunbar conducted, he came to the conclusion that human beings are able to have up to 150 people in their group. These are people they are able to know and depend upon. This means that a group is able to work efficiently with just under 150 people in it, because everyone knows everyone else and they know who they should go to if they need help, or need advice on a specific subject. To explain this he mentioned an experiment done where, Daniel Wegner, who works at the University of Virgina, took many different couples (usually people who have dated for a while) and he split some up and kept others together, he then had them read a list of 64 statements, and after 5 minutes asked them to list as many as they could remember. The results were that people who were with another person they knew, were able to remember more because they had "joint memories" created from their relationship between each other and knew what information the other could read and remember, the groups that had been split did not have this thus did not remember as many statements.
Gladwell uses a company called; Gore, as example. This company is very advanced and abides by the 150. Every time the company reaches the 150 person limit they split them and move one group them to another building. Due to this their company has many strong ties within their individual offices are able to work more efficiently. In this chapter Gladwell also mentions the booked called; The Ya-Ya Sisterhood. This book became extremely popular after a group of people attended a reading of the book by the author. Through this one group, of 150 people, the word of how great this book went from group to group till finally word was everywhere that this one book was awesome.
Link back to Essential question: The discovery(is event) of this new information is really important, because it deepens our understanding of how our lives are affected by different groups of people. When looking back we can analyze how people work together and how it benefits us in the long run, depending on the results our decisions could be influenced toward limiting our groups of friends to 150 people, or companies limiting their employees per building to 150 for better efficiency.
Job: Discussion Director. 5/13/10 Do you think our school is like the Gore offices? Is your family separated to where one person is an expert in one subject? Do you have someone in this school (besides teachers) who you can go to, to get help in a subject? Do you think that the reason the book Ya- Ya Sisterhood became a bestseller was due to Rebbecca Wells being a connector/ Saleswoman or because of the Rule of 150? Do you agree with the theory that people can only work well with around 150 people? Do you have a group that size?
Summary: 5/17/10 (eighth assignment) In this section of reading Gladwell starts out explaining the rise of Airwalks, which is a type of shoe. At first the shoe brand was rather small and hadn't yet gotten to the size of other epidemics. In the 1990's the Airwalk company hired a new advertising company, and then started to come up with new, better ways to get their product known. They looked into a group of people called Innovators. Innovators are people who are the first to try out any new product, and are the people who translate the uses for these products to the rest of the people in the world. Researching this group of people and what type of stuff they are into at the moment, the Airwalk company tailored their commercials to what the Innovators thought were cool and made really outstanding commercials for the majority of the population using the information they had gotten from the Innovators. This information managed to get the Airwalk shoe brand the Tipping Point they needed.
In the next section Gladwell uses the increase in suicides, and the increase in teenage smoking to demonstrate his point. He said that suicides were kind of contagious, and that after one person committed suicide because of something that happened to him, the number of suicides in the following months spiked because of the same reasons, and they all generally killed themselves the same way. In some regions suicide has become very common, and has sort of become like a culture.
Gladwell then wraps up this section using Teenage smoking. Gladwell states that the people fighting Cigarette companies are wrong in saying that the reason so many teenagers smoke is because the companies make the cigarettes look cool. In reality it isn't the cigarettes that are cool, it is the people who start smoking them that are cool, and they are the ones that make smoking cool. Also it is said that when parents nag their children about how bad a certain product is, it is more likely that they will use that product anyway. These examples are saying that people, after hearing of these occurrences, are given the subconscious permission to emulate the actions. All of these examples are epidemics that had Tipping Points that wouldn't have happened if a few people hadn't found these new products cool.
Essential Question: The importance of these individual events are important because they make a pretty big impact in our lives. The reason for this is because even though we might not think of it like this, these people are being influenced by what other people are doing, such as the Suicide spikes, and the increase in teenage smokes. We as humans are influenced greatly by what others do or say. When looking back on history and analyzing the results of announcing, say a suicide in the news, it would tell us to re-think what we print in newspapers or what we say in the news. When companies are looking back to see what they did right, so they could have another shoe brand Epidemic they will find that looking for people who are Innovators was a good idea, and thus they will decide to keep using that plan to find greater ways to advertise. And finally when parents are confronted with how to tell their children about bad things they can look into how other people turned out and how their parents told them, and can decide what the best ways are explain to a child the negative affects that, lets say a cigarette, can have on them so they could understand.
Job: Discussion Director. Where you ever influenced by a trend? Do you know people who are Innovators? Can you think of any product that has had an incline in popularity, like Airwalks did? Do you think that Airwalks, Suicide rates, and Smoking increase are related? If so how? Do you agree with Gladwell's theory that people will commit suicide if others did? What is the importance of these events?How are our decisions influenced by these specific events?
Summary: 5/20/10 (ninth and final assignment) In this final assignment we finished the book. Gladwell first finished up the section on smokers. He explained that people that there is a small portion of people who are actually "hooked," on smoking, to the point where they smoke a pack a day. He explained that due to their first reaction some people became regular smokers and others barely smoke or completely smoke. This is due to what type of person they are, if they need the nicotine to keep them from depression they will keep smoking, but if they are not in need of the nicotine then they will eventually just stop smoking the cigarette. Also addiction to nicotine can depend on their genes, if a person has the ability to have a high tolerance of nicotine then they are more likely to be heavy smokers, if they didn't have a high tolerance the likely hood of them becoming high smokers is low. Gladwell comes up with two ideas of how to stop smoking, he proposes that they remove the need for smokers to smoke, by removing the addictive drug. He also proposes that we make "experiments," safer since "experimenting," is common in teenagers, than what companies could do is lower the level of nicotine, so that they can have a better chance of being hooked on the drug.
In his final section he pulls everything together, saying that to start a word of mouth epidemic you have to either, go to a Connector, Maven, or Salesman. To change something you have to start with a few people and change something very significant that will affect everything else. He also talks about others stuff that he left out of the main part of the book, like Understanding the Age of Isolation: where due the separation in groups (kids and adults) different epidemics occur and spread within a certain group, without ever spreading into the other groups, he explains this using the Columbine Massacre as an example. Also in this section was a part called: Beware the Rise of Immunity: where he used technologies to explain that overtime certain things annoy people to the point where they stop using the product, like Land lines, because you are constantly being solicited you stop using the product. He closes this book with, because of rapidly changing times it is becoming ever more difficult to find people that have the characteristics of a Maven, Connector, or a Salesmen.
Essential Question: After finishing the book I'm able to correctly answer the essential question. The importance of a single event can be very big based on the circumstances a event starts off as, for example if you use the correct people (salesman,maven, and connector) than something, such hushpupies being the new cool thing can spread like wildfire. When looking to the past for reference we can look at these important people and circumstances and analyze them so that when we need to we can use methods to help us out, and make decisions that could potentially stop the smoking epidemic, or the syphilis epidemic.
Job: researcher: The Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High school in Columbine. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12 students and one teacher. They also injured 21 other students directly, and three people were injured while attempting to escape. The pair then committed suicide. the availability of firearms in the United States, and gun violence involving youths. Much discussion centered on the nature of high school clique, subcultures and bullying, as well as the role of violent movies and video games in American society. The shooting also resulted in an increased emphasis on school security, and a moral panic social outcasts, and the gun culture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre
Nicotine-In low concentrations (an average cigarette yields about 1 mg of absorbed nicotine), the substance acts as a stimulant in mammals and is the main factor responsible for the dependence-forming properties of smoking. According to the American Heart Association, the "nicotine addiction has historically been one of the hardest addictions to break. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine
Connector:
This section is related to our own lives, because it talks about how teenagers are testers, and right now we are in that age bracket where people are testing products such as smoking, and this is because of the fact that teenagers are isolated from the adults, we talk with each other and we most diffidently influence each other.
Summarizer: 5/2/10 (first reading assignment)
In this first chapter of The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, he states that all changes are apart of; Epidemics. When we read or hear Epidemic we think in matters of disease, but Malcolm Gladwell explains that epidemics could be more than just diseases they can be other occurrences such as the sudden increase of Hush Puppy Sales, or the sudden decrease in crime in New York City. He also goes on to explain that all epidemics have three common points, they are: 1) They are contagious. 2) Little causes can have big effects. 3) change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment. He also says that the point at which everything changes (within a epidemic) is called The Tipping Point. He explains that there could be three causes for something to dramatically change, and they are: The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. He explains his many points using the Hush Puppy Epidemic, New York Crime rate decrease, the spread of Syphilis through New York, and the murder of Kitty Genovese and how 38 people heard her scream but no one responded or helped because they thought the other people would do it. I expect that Malcolm Gladwell will explain the three causes/ factors of change more in depth, in the chapters to follow.
Passage Master: 5/2/10 (First reading assignment.)
1st passage: page 13: bottom of page:
- I chose this because it illustrates that small changes can have bigger effects, using the change in precipitation once the temperature change a couple degrees.
2nd passage: page 17: Middle Paragraph to the end of the next page
- I chose this passage because it shows that if you change the environment that, in this case, is containing a disease, it takes away the barriers that are containing it there, and thus it is allowed to spread and infect other areas, that previously haven't had an issue with this problem.
3rd passage: page 25
- I chose this passage because it demonstrates that if companies have a catchy slogan or a memorable saying it will give the product a better chance of becoming popular.
4th passage: page 27-28
- I chose this passage because it shows that even the most smallest things can effect how human beings react to different situations.
Summarizer: 5/4/10 (second reading assignment)
In this reading Gladwell talks about the people who are able to cause a Tipping Point. He states that the people who are able to do this are very social people, and they have a lot of people they communicate a lot with. He explains this using Paul Reveres legendary ride to Lexington to tell the militia that the British are coming. On his way to Lexington he passed through many towns, and in those towns he knew people, and he told them the situation, and they told their friends and they told their friends, and by the time the British actually did come the people were able to fight them off. He also uses William Dawes ride to Lexington, which was similar to Paul Reveres ride, but the major difference was that he didn't have people to tell in those towns that he passed through, and when the British did come they were not prepared at all. The people that have the ability to spread information, like Paul Revere, are called Connectors.
Connectors are people who have many many friends and introduce friends to other friends and can be traced back to through these ties as the person who made them. Being a connector can get you unexpected awards. He uses, Roger Horchow, as an example of a person who impulsively makes friendships with people, or Weak ties, and at one point he wanted to do a remake of the show, Girl Crazy?, and because he knew the closest friend of the person who could give him the rights to that film, he was able to do a remake. People Like Roger Horchow (connector) are the people who can effect a Tipping Point.
What is this importance of a single event? How does analyzing events or individuals impact decisions made today?
- A single event, such as Paul Revere's Ride to Lexington, is important because it impacted so many people, and because he had many friends the word that The British were coming spread faster and basically saved a lot of people. When analyzing events like this we learn what is best to do in situations like this, we learned from this specific event that people who have large circles of friends are able to spread the word, or cause a Tipping Point.
Job: Discussion Director 5/4/10 (second reading assignment)
What was your score on the name counting page? Do you, or anyone else you know, show the characteristics of being a connector? Do you think that college students, or people in their 40's have larger network of friends today? Do you think you meet more people through friends, or through activities that you do with others?
Summarizer: 5/6/10 (third reading assignment)
In this section Gladwell continued to talk about connectors how, typically, they are people that can go into different "worlds," (different groups of people) and make "acquaintances," and when they get information on a, lets say good restaurant, and once they get home they will e-mail some people from different groups or areas and from then the word that this certain restaurant is good, spreads through their groups. After talking about the connectors Gladwell talked about a group of people known as, Mavens, this people, Gladwell explains, are people who are information hunters, and like to learn about anything and everything. These Mavens like to learn new things and teach people about what they learm , and to advise them on what hotels have the best price, and how to buy a car for a much cheaper price. This means that a maven would have to talk to a connector about, let's say, the good price for Hush Puppies, and the connector would use his vast amount of connections to spread the word about these great prices for Hush Puppies. Gladwell states that Paul Revere was one of those rare people that was both a Maven and a Connector, because he was secretly working to gather information on the British Movements. The importance of occurrences like those of Paul Revere's ride to Lexington, and the Hush Puppies popularity increase are important events to look back on because it is interesting to find out how many different people are involved in these changes, and analyzing these events can teach us how our connections to different people work, and can also influence us in making the same decisions today.
Job: Researcher: 5/6/10 (third reading assignment)
Paul Revere: was a member of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, and Committee of Saftey. Both of these played a part in the American Revolution, and also it demonstrates that Paul Revere was a Maven, since he was collecting information for these groups. Also the fact that he was apart of multiple groups shows that he is also a connector, since he is able to go into "different worlds," or in other terms different groups of people, and still be able to effect them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere
Lois Weisberg: Lois Weisberg was declared a connector because she can make aquaintances easily, and she is able to and has been through many different worlds and interact with them. Using her ties she has been able to do many different projects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Weisberg
Summarizer: 5/9/10 (fourth assignment)
This last part of our reading finished the chapter on The Law of The Few and started into the chapter called The Stickiness Factor. In the last couple of pages in The Law of The Few chapter, Gladwell introduces us to another type of person who can influence a tipping point, and this type of person is called the, "Salesman." The important quality that these people have is the quality to persuade people. These people can persuade you, using body movement, and emotion to control the conversation. Their enthusiasm can rub off and you, and in turn you will mimic this feeling. Salesmen can manipulate people in simple ways but are people that can cause a tipping point. The importance of one moment in time where you are being influenced by someone whose personality is stronger than yours can make is big, and researching and analyzing these types of poeple can force people to make different decisions in future because they are now aware of the influence of these types of people. In the next chapter Gladwell described what the Stickiness Factor was. The Stickiness factor is the ability for some form of information to stay in your mind. In this section Gladwell used, Sesame Street television series as an example of this. The people that made this show conducted many different experiments to see what type of techniques the children would pay attention to and what would ultimately make them learn. An interesting thing that I learned from this part was that kids don't stop watching the television because they get distracted, they stop watching because that particular part is confusing, so instead of being even more confused the kids would stop watching. So to make this information stick into the minds of these kids the producers of this show would have to simplify what the actors/muppets were saying so that the information would stick more permanently into the minds of these kids. When you think about these small events you think they aren't important, but they are because they teaching everyone what works and what doesn't work, and when you analyze these events the person producing the show is most likely going to use the information that is more successful than the techniques that aren't.
Job: Passage Master. 5/9/10 (fourth assignment)
1st passage- page 82: I chose this particular passage because I found it interesting that you can influence a persons decisions with your body movements, and your facial expressions. I use my hands a lot when I talk to, emphasize my points maybe i'm a potential salesman.
2nd passage- page 90: I picked this passage because it is saying that people watch a lot of television, and companies are using that fact to get us. But there are also people are looking to enhance us, looking for a way to get our children a head start so that illiteracy rates would go down.
3rd passage- top of page 95- I found this part interesting because they say to get more people to buy stuff from your add you have to make them participate, give them an incentive.
Summary: 5/11/10 (fifth assignment)
For this assignment we finished up The Stickiness Factor, and started The Law of Context. In the conclusion of The Stickiness Factor chapter, Gladwell discusses how making a few small changes can tip the amount of viewers to favor you. The example he used was Blue Clues. People who worked for Sesame Street left Sesame Street and feeling that they could build up on what they learned from Sesame Street. Instead of trying to be clever, the creators of Blues Clues made it so that it was easy to understand using words little children could understand, and they also made it so that kids could actively participate with the show.(Linking Back to Essential Question:)The importance of this single event is that by researching and observing, the creators of Blue's Clues were able to build on old ideas, and tip the amount of viewers towards their show. Looking back and analyzing this would be basically just like what the creators of Blue's Clue's did, and we can then decide to build on old ideas. The next section, The Power of Context, talks about how if your environment is changed it can cause, in general, change in behavior. Gladwell used the the subway system, in New York, as an example, once the subway system was repaired and cleaned up and got security in them, crime rate went down. This was due to the fact that the environment in the subway system was changed. (linking back to essential question) When examining the past it is important to take into account the small changes, such as environment changes, because they make an impact. This in effect can influence our decisions today by making us want to get the same results when cleaning homes, schools, and even shopping centers.
Job: Passage Manager. 5/11/10 (fifth assignment)
1st. Page 113- This is interesting to me, because I would think that kids would be interested in this plot line, but I learned that once it got somewhat complicated kids would start to tune out.
2nd. Page 120 (girls conversation with herself)- Also interesting to know that kids depend on the narrative part of a story, and sometimes they would narrate their owne lives.
3rd. Page 142-143 chose this because he says that even the smallest things, such as graffiti, can be an influence on crime rates.
Summary: 5/12/010 (6th assignment)
This reading concluded the first part of The Power of Context. In this reading Gladwell explains that the decisions that individual people make are influenced greatly by what situation they are in. He explains this a number of ways, and one of those was an experiment being led by Phillip Zimbardo, who worked at Stanford University. In this, Zimbrado wanted to know if it was the people in the prison that made the environment nasty, or the actual environment that made the prisoners nasty. The results were stunning. The guards, who almost all described themselves as pacifists, had suddenly transformed into the aggressors and were thinking up many different ways to torment their prisoners. What a reader can glean from this experiment is that the situations and environment people are put into can have a great affect on how they behave, and what decisions they make. In this section they also tested students, using various tests, and then giving them the answer key so they can check their work. Most likely the experimenters had a copy of the test with their answers, and after the student turned in his "checked" test they would see if they had cheated. 50% of students will cheat, based on what type of situation they are in. This further supports the theory of Power of Context because the Power of Context states that no matter the size, if the environment has changed it will force the people in that environment to make quick choices, and thus cause a Tipping Point.
Linking Back to the Essential Question:
If the the environment has been altered, and in response a person has changed their behaviors, then that single change(event) had a big impact on that person and will eventually have a impact on many other people. When looking back on this chapter, I have learned that it is best to not only analyze the person but also analyze the situation that they were put in. Learning from the people and the situations they were in we can learn from them and are able to make decisions that would not put us in those peoples similar positions, so we wouldn't have to make those uncomfortable snap decisions.
Jon: Passage Master: 5/12/10 ( 6th assignment)
Passage one: Page 154: I chose this because I found it interesting that even though these people had signed up for this experiment they still reacted to environment and even though it wasn't "real" some of them still broke down, and went hysterical.
Passage two: Page 159: I chose this because, even they are talking about monkeys, humans can react similarly. I mean humans are more attuned to other human beings other than other species, like the monkeys who didn't notice the python laying in wait, but knew more information about their own species.
Summary: 5/13/10 (seventh assignment)
In this chapter, Gladwell explained that human beings can only process certain amounts of information, and accordingly can only keep track of up to 150 different people. This is called The Rule of 150. An experiment done by a scientist, named Robin Dunbar, informs us that the amount of people a single person can know and talk to is proportional to how big their Neo-cortex is(this is apart of their brain). Based off many tests Dunbar conducted, he came to the conclusion that human beings are able to have up to 150 people in their group. These are people they are able to know and depend upon. This means that a group is able to work efficiently with just under 150 people in it, because everyone knows everyone else and they know who they should go to if they need help, or need advice on a specific subject. To explain this he mentioned an experiment done where, Daniel Wegner, who works at the University of Virgina, took many different couples (usually people who have dated for a while) and he split some up and kept others together, he then had them read a list of 64 statements, and after 5 minutes asked them to list as many as they could remember. The results were that people who were with another person they knew, were able to remember more because they had "joint memories" created from their relationship between each other and knew what information the other could read and remember, the groups that had been split did not have this thus did not remember as many statements.
Gladwell uses a company called; Gore, as example. This company is very advanced and abides by the 150. Every time the company reaches the 150 person limit they split them and move one group them to another building. Due to this their company has many strong ties within their individual offices are able to work more efficiently. In this chapter Gladwell also mentions the booked called; The Ya-Ya Sisterhood. This book became extremely popular after a group of people attended a reading of the book by the author. Through this one group, of 150 people, the word of how great this book went from group to group till finally word was everywhere that this one book was awesome.
Link back to Essential question:
The discovery(is event) of this new information is really important, because it deepens our understanding of how our lives are affected by different groups of people. When looking back we can analyze how people work together and how it benefits us in the long run, depending on the results our decisions could be influenced toward limiting our groups of friends to 150 people, or companies limiting their employees per building to 150 for better efficiency.
Job: Discussion Director. 5/13/10
Do you think our school is like the Gore offices? Is your family separated to where one person is an expert in one subject? Do you have someone in this school (besides teachers) who you can go to, to get help in a subject? Do you think that the reason the book Ya- Ya Sisterhood became a bestseller was due to Rebbecca Wells being a connector/ Saleswoman or because of the Rule of 150? Do you agree with the theory that people can only work well with around 150 people? Do you have a group that size?
Summary: 5/17/10 (eighth assignment)
In this section of reading Gladwell starts out explaining the rise of Airwalks, which is a type of shoe. At first the shoe brand was rather small and hadn't yet gotten to the size of other epidemics. In the 1990's the Airwalk company hired a new advertising company, and then started to come up with new, better ways to get their product known. They looked into a group of people called Innovators. Innovators are people who are the first to try out any new product, and are the people who translate the uses for these products to the rest of the people in the world. Researching this group of people and what type of stuff they are into at the moment, the Airwalk company tailored their commercials to what the Innovators thought were cool and made really outstanding commercials for the majority of the population using the information they had gotten from the Innovators. This information managed to get the Airwalk shoe brand the Tipping Point they needed.
In the next section Gladwell uses the increase in suicides, and the increase in teenage smoking to demonstrate his point. He said that suicides were kind of contagious, and that after one person committed suicide because of something that happened to him, the number of suicides in the following months spiked because of the same reasons, and they all generally killed themselves the same way. In some regions suicide has become very common, and has sort of become like a culture.
Gladwell then wraps up this section using Teenage smoking. Gladwell states that the people fighting Cigarette companies are wrong in saying that the reason so many teenagers smoke is because the companies make the cigarettes look cool. In reality it isn't the cigarettes that are cool, it is the people who start smoking them that are cool, and they are the ones that make smoking cool. Also it is said that when parents nag their children about how bad a certain product is, it is more likely that they will use that product anyway. These examples are saying that people, after hearing of these occurrences, are given the subconscious permission to emulate the actions. All of these examples are epidemics that had Tipping Points that wouldn't have happened if a few people hadn't found these new products cool.
Essential Question:
The importance of these individual events are important because they make a pretty big impact in our lives. The reason for this is because even though we might not think of it like this, these people are being influenced by what other people are doing, such as the Suicide spikes, and the increase in teenage smokes. We as humans are influenced greatly by what others do or say. When looking back on history and analyzing the results of announcing, say a suicide in the news, it would tell us to re-think what we print in newspapers or what we say in the news. When companies are looking back to see what they did right, so they could have another shoe brand Epidemic they will find that looking for people who are Innovators was a good idea, and thus they will decide to keep using that plan to find greater ways to advertise. And finally when parents are confronted with how to tell their children about bad things they can look into how other people turned out and how their parents told them, and can decide what the best ways are explain to a child the negative affects that, lets say a cigarette, can have on them so they could understand.
Job: Discussion Director.
Where you ever influenced by a trend? Do you know people who are Innovators? Can you think of any product that has had an incline in popularity, like Airwalks did? Do you think that Airwalks, Suicide rates, and Smoking increase are related? If so how? Do you agree with Gladwell's theory that people will commit suicide if others did? What is the importance of these events?How are our decisions influenced by these specific events?
Summary: 5/20/10 (ninth and final assignment)
In this final assignment we finished the book. Gladwell first finished up the section on smokers. He explained that people that there is a small portion of people who are actually "hooked," on smoking, to the point where they smoke a pack a day. He explained that due to their first reaction some people became regular smokers and others barely smoke or completely smoke. This is due to what type of person they are, if they need the nicotine to keep them from depression they will keep smoking, but if they are not in need of the nicotine then they will eventually just stop smoking the cigarette. Also addiction to nicotine can depend on their genes, if a person has the ability to have a high tolerance of nicotine then they are more likely to be heavy smokers, if they didn't have a high tolerance the likely hood of them becoming high smokers is low. Gladwell comes up with two ideas of how to stop smoking, he proposes that they remove the need for smokers to smoke, by removing the addictive drug. He also proposes that we make "experiments," safer since "experimenting," is common in teenagers, than what companies could do is lower the level of nicotine, so that they can have a better chance of being hooked on the drug.
In his final section he pulls everything together, saying that to start a word of mouth epidemic you have to either, go to a Connector, Maven, or Salesman. To change something you have to start with a few people and change something very significant that will affect everything else. He also talks about others stuff that he left out of the main part of the book, like Understanding the Age of Isolation: where due the separation in groups (kids and adults) different epidemics occur and spread within a certain group, without ever spreading into the other groups, he explains this using the Columbine Massacre as an example. Also in this section was a part called: Beware the Rise of Immunity: where he used technologies to explain that overtime certain things annoy people to the point where they stop using the product, like Land lines, because you are constantly being solicited you stop using the product. He closes this book with, because of rapidly changing times it is becoming ever more difficult to find people that have the characteristics of a Maven, Connector, or a Salesmen.
Essential Question:
After finishing the book I'm able to correctly answer the essential question. The importance of a single event can be very big based on the circumstances a event starts off as, for example if you use the correct people (salesman,maven, and connector) than something, such hushpupies being the new cool thing can spread like wildfire. When looking to the past for reference we can look at these important people and circumstances and analyze them so that when we need to we can use methods to help us out, and make decisions that could potentially stop the smoking epidemic, or the syphilis epidemic.
Job: researcher:
The Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High school in Columbine. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12 students and one teacher. They also injured 21 other students directly, and three people were injured while attempting to escape. The pair then committed suicide. the availability of firearms in the United States, and gun violence involving youths. Much discussion centered on the nature of high school clique, subcultures and bullying, as well as the role of violent movies and video games in American society. The shooting also resulted in an increased emphasis on school security, and a moral panic social outcasts, and the gun culture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre
Nicotine-In low concentrations (an average cigarette yields about 1 mg of absorbed nicotine), the substance acts as a stimulant in mammals and is the main factor responsible for the dependence-forming properties of smoking. According to the American Heart Association, the "nicotine addiction has historically been one of the hardest addictions to break.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine
Connector:
This section is related to our own lives, because it talks about how teenagers are testers, and right now we are in that age bracket where people are testing products such as smoking, and this is because of the fact that teenagers are isolated from the adults, we talk with each other and we most diffidently influence each other.